Chris Duke is an accomplished, award-winning fine artist. Her oil paintings adorn corporate headquarters as well as homes across the country. Chris is known for her classical pen and ink style, in which she embellishes her art with geometric and textual elements that evoke the feel of a Leonardo da Vinci notebook. In this style, Chris depicts a range of subjects, including people, animals, flowers and architecture. She also has specialized in oil portraiture of individuals, children, families and pets. Chris feels that serious portraits are emblematic; they portray the subject to the viewer over an extended time, well beyond the day of the sitting. A finely wrought portrait immortalizes a moment and captures its importance.Chris has thrice been selected as the official artist of the Westminster Dog Show at Madison Square Garden in New Your City. She has been the official artist of the National Dog Show in Philadelphia twice.In addition, Chris is the official portrait artist for THE PLAYERS Championship. She has completed more than forty portraits of winning golfers, all of which are on display at the Sawgrass clubhouse gallery in Ponte Vedra, Florida. Chris relates to and loves the challenge of solo performance, man versus himself on any given day. Playing professional golf, like doing art, is a cutting edge individual effort.As one of America’s leading illustrators, Chris has worked for Fortune 500 companies such as American Express, AT&T, IBM, Cunard and Adidas, as well as for publications including the New York Times, People Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal. In her career, she illustrated animated television ads, two for Johnson and Johnson. Her work is displayed in many institutions, including the George Washington Museum at Mount Vernon.Chris attended the Parsons School of Design and holds a Master of Arts in Figurative Studies from the New York Academy of Art.After a long career of illustration, Chris devotes time to sheer play and experimentation and always has new works brewing. These pieces inform all the jobs she does and keep her process energizing, from design to execution.Chris is represented by Frank and Jeff Lavaty, agents in New York City. She lives in Winchester, Virginia with her husband John and Best-Dog Lucy, a Boston Terrier. Recently, two kittens have joined the household.Chris: I regularly ponder vestiges of wisdom from mentors I’ve known. One in particular, Bernard D’Andrea, was a fine illustrator and painter who has seemed to travel on my shoulder over the decades. I am the better for it. His shrewd voice calls to me – sometimes a shout (“Bust the white!), sometimes a whisper (“Growth is the biggest secret of being an artist.”) – and creates within me a motivating interior tension. There is always more to consider, more to understand. Some morsels of wisdom are so subtle that they are only absorbed (if at all) many years hence. Art is a journey. One has to embark upon it, to grapple with it, to grow in the process. Art is not achieved in abstractions and philosophies: it has edges and absoluteness, and must be achieved hands-on. Art is concrete. Having been a busy illustrator for many deadline-driven years, I am disciplined about my long work hours. Habits of time and attention deeply ingrained, my work has become a well-tread path. One boon of a long, productive career is a feeling of relative competence. I have heard “art” defined as creation where the artist does not entirely know the outcome herself. (Conversely, when the creator tightly orchestrates the outcome, the work becomes craft. Replicating, say, a beautiful pottery bowl is craft.) I find this differentiation edifying because, in spite of bountiful sketches and paint compositions, I can never wholly anticipate the outcome when I paint. Creating art is an adventure, a battle of wits with the blank whiteness of the canvas or paper. The potential, at the beginning, feels infinite. Soon, though, the work of art attains a voice of its own and tells you what it requires. Art lives, for sure. Though art feels boundless, time is finite. There is much left to do, much to explore. I want to be at the easel.For more detailed information, please see Chris' websites.https://www.ChrisDukeArt.comhtts://www.Chris4Kids.com